Committee of Scientists

Mike Collopy (UNR)

Dr. Mike Collopy was named director of the University of Nevada, Reno's Academy of the Environment in 2006. He joined the University in 2001 as professor and chair of the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Science. Collopy is an internationally regarded professor and researcher in the ecology and conservation of birds of prey.

Prior to joining the University of Nevada, Collopy led the creation of an interdisciplinary federal research lab located on the campus of Oregon State University and directed it for 10 years. Before that, he chaired the Wildlife and Range Sciences Department at the University of Florida for five years. He holds a doctorate in natural resources from the University of Michigan, a master's degree in wildlife management from Humboldt State University, and a bachelor's degree in biology from the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Alan Gertler (DRI)

Dr. Gertler's research includes both laboratory and field studies of atmospheric chemistry with particular emphasis on the impact of mobile sources on the environment. His research at DRI has included the characterization of factors affecting the rate and mechanism of SO2 and NOx oxidation in the atmosphere, wet and dry deposition processes, studies of chemical processes leading to "gas-to-particle" conversion, the effects of acids and their precursors on materials, fog and cloud droplet characterization, trace analysis of pollutants in air and water samples, and development of quality assurance procedures to insure the accuracy of wet and dry deposition data. In addition, he has investigated discrepancies between observed and predicted automotive emission factors, performed on-road measurements of CO, NOx, speciated NMHC, dioxin, furan, PAHs, and organic and inorganic speciated PM2.5 and PM10 emissions from on-road vehicles.

His current research includes measurements and characterization of mobile source PM10 and PM2.5 emissions, assessing the impact of highways on ambient gaseous and particulate pollutant levels, development of new methods to attribute observed PM levels to specific sources, and assessing the magnitude and sources of atmospheric deposition in the Lake Tahoe basin.

Dr. Gertler was the recipient of the “Hope for the Future of a Sustainable World 2001” award from the International Union of Air Pollution Prevention & Environmental Protection Agencies and the International Academy of Science (IUAPPA). He received the Dandini Medal of Science from the Desert Research Institute in 2000.

He received a B.S. in Chemistry from SUNY Albany and a Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from UCLA.

Kimball Goddard (USGS)

Kimball Goddard graduated from the Pennsylvania State University with a BS in Geochemistry/Petrology in 1972. After a field season of geologic mapping in the San Juan Mountains of Colorado, he begin his career with the Water Resources Division of the U.S. Geological Survey in the fall of 1972 at Pueblo, Colorado. Initially in the streamgaging program, he later worked on ground-water contamination issues along the Colorado Front Range, urban runoff, and developed a waste-load assimilation model of the Arkansas River near Pueblo. In 1977, Kimball transferred to the Grand Junction Colorado office where he worked on water-quality issues related to oil-shale development and Colorado River salinity. In 1980, he transferred to Rapid City, South Dakota to head an urban runoff study, and was later involved in several research efforts focused on arsenic contamination resulting from gold mining in the northern Black Hills.

Kimball assumed the duties of Subdistrict Chief of the Rapid City Subdistrict office in 1982. Since that time, he has held various senior management positions with the water resources portion of USGS in several western States, including South Dakota, Arizona, Idaho, and Utah. He was named District Chief of the Utah District in January 1996, where he spent seven years before assuming the position of Nevada District Chief in November 2002. In 2004, in concurrence with naming conventions used throughout the USGS, Kimball became Director, USGS Nevada Water Science Center (same position, different title).

Pat Manley (PSW)

My research focuses on natural and human factors affecting biological diversity in a variety of terrestrial, riparian, and aquatic ecosystems in California, with particular emphasis on conservation challenges in the Lake Tahoe basin. I am currently the lead scientist on three studies that evaluate the effects of human factors on population and community processes shaping biological diversity. In addition to my core research program, I have a strong interest in the design and analysis of landscape-scale ecosystem monitoring. I led the design of the Sierra Nevada monitoring strategy, which encompassed a wide variety of biological and physical features: 1) populations and habitats of species of concern; 2) terrestrial and aquatic ecosystem conditions; and 3) sociocultural phenomena as integrated components of ecosystems. I am currently co-leading the development and testing of a national protocol for monitoring multiple species and their habitats (Multiple-Species Inventory and Monitoring protocol) as a tool to meet National Forest obligations to monitor Management Indicator Species.

Wally Miller (UNR)

The environmental significance of the Tahoe Basin is clearly demonstrated by historic efforts to protect lake and tributary quality through management of naturally diverse watershed ecosystems. The balance between runoff, infiltration, recharge and nutrient transport can be easily shifted through human activities such as forestry, grazing, resource management and watershed development. Subsequent impacts of each activity on source and amount of water and nutrient discharge must be clearly understood if we are to truly reduce nutrient loading, rather than simply re-route the nutrients to an alternate discharge pathway.

Our studies have clearly shown infiltration, runoff, erosion, groundwater recharge, and nutrient transport to be heterogeneous and difficult to predict due to such factors as soil water repellency, preferential flow, soil type, plot condition and vegetative cover. We have most recently examined colloid nutrient transport as a mechanism for the cycling of particle- reactive chemicals that may influence lake and tributary ecology in the Sierra Nevada. Such forms may well represent a previously unrecognized significant source of mobile nutrients in the Sierra Nevada.

John Reuter (UCD)

John E. Reuter, Ph.D. is on the research faculty at the University of California at Davis and has 30 years of experience in many aspects of limnology, water quality, and watershed management at Lake Tahoe. Dr. Reuter served for many years as the Director of the Lake Tahoe Interagency Monitoring Program, a multi-agency monitoring/research effort to understand the effects of watershed and atmospheric processes on the water quality of Lake Tahoe. He is currently the Associate Director of the UC Davis-Tahoe Environmental Research Center and serves as Science Coordinator for the Lake Tahoe TMDL for the states of California and Nevada. He has written and co-authored nearly 200 scientific publications and technical reports. In 1996, he received the North American Lake Management Society’s award as Outstanding Scientific Researcher. In 2003 he was awarded the UC Davis Academic Federation’s Excellence in Research Award. He is a peer-reviewer for numerous journals and has served on many regional and national appointed committees.

He has published on a wide variety of subjects including, limnology, nutrient cycling, nitrogen fixation, whole-lake experiments, periphyton, nutrient budgets, atmospheric deposition, phytoplankton ecology, stormwater runoff and water treatment, mercury, MTBE, lake modeling, stream hydrology and nutrient loading, environmental policy, 15N stable isotopes, food web dynamics, algal bioassays and other topics.

Tim Rowe (USGS)

Tim is a Hydrologist with U.S. Geological Survey, Water Resources Discipline, Nevada Water Science Center in Carson City. He is also the Biologist for the Nevada Basin and Range Study Unit in the National Water Quality Asessement (NAWQA) Program. Tim has been involved in the Lake Tahoe Basin since 1989, first as Chief of the Lake Tahoe Stream and Groundwater Monitoring Program and now as USGS Lake Tahoe Liaison.

Tim’s experience includes over 28 years of Federal Service in California, Alaska, and Nevada. For the past 20 years Tim has worked in Nevada on various water quality projects. Prior experience included Fisheries Biology with U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, U.S. Forest Service and California Department of Fish & Game

Tim received BS degree in Fisheries/Wildlife Biology from California State University, Sacramento in 1978. He also attended the University of Southern California, University of Alaska-Anchorage and University of Nevada, Reno.

Geoff Schladow (UCD)

Geoffrey Schladow is a Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at UC Davis, and Director of the UC Davis Tahoe Environmental Research Center. He is an expert in the areas of environmental fluid mechanics, water quality modeling, and the dynamics of lakes, reservoirs, rivers and estuaries. Dr Schladow has worked on lakes in every continent, including the three largest lakes in California – Lake Tahoe, Clear Lake and the Salton Sea. His published and presented work includes field and modeling studies, remote sensing of aquatic systems and climate change effects.

Dr Schladow has or is serving as the Principal Investigator of major, interdisciplinary research projects funded by the National Science Foundation, the US Environmental Protection Agency, The National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the California Resources Agency, the California Water Resources Control Board, the Nature Conservancy and the United Nations Environmental Program.

Dr Schladow is on the Board of Directors of the Tahoe-Baikal Institute, and is leading an effort to create a Pacific Rim Lakes Network to explore the impacts of global climate change on aquatic ecosystems.

Peter Stine (PSW)

Education
B.S. Forestry and Conservation, 1975, University of California, Berkeley
M.S. Wildland Resources Science, 1977, University of California, Berkeley
Ph.D. Geography, 1995, University of California at Santa Barbara

Research Interests/Duties
Biogeography; Conservation biology; Endangered species ecology; Geographic Information Systems; Community ecology; Wildland resource management; Ecological monitoring; Landscape Ecology.

Current Emphases, Studies, Projects

Fire and Fuels Management, Landscape Dynamics, and Fish and wildlife Resources; an Integrated Research Study in the Northern Sierra Nevada.
Development of a Node to the National Biological Information Infrastructure in collaboration with scientists at U.C. Davis.
Investigating alternative land use/habitat conservation strategies using GIS and optimization modeling.
Preventing conflicts between biodiversity and future human land uses -- a research program underway at U.C. Berkeley.

Jim Thomas (DRI)

Dr. Jim Thomas is an associate research professor and director of the Desert Research Institute's Center for Watersheds and Environmental Sustainability. Thomas holds a bachelor's degree in geology from the University of Vermont, a master's degree in geology from Indiana University, and doctorate degree in hydrology/hydrogeology from the University of Nevada, Reno, McKay School of Mines. His general research interests include hydrogeology, water chemistry, age-dating groundwater, groundwater recharge and discharge processes, watershed hydrology, and water resource quality and sustainability in developing countries. He has conducted research primarily in three geographic areas: northern Nevada watersheds, particularly the Lake Tahoe and Walker Lake watersheds; southern and eastern Nevada; and West Africa. His research in the Lake Tahoe Basin focuses on hydrology, water chemistry, stormwater runoff, and the effectiveness of BMP projects in the Lake Tahoe watershed.